


The Choices We Make

by LauraRoslinForever



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I Had To, I'm Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 21:01:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19483954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauraRoslinForever/pseuds/LauraRoslinForever
Summary: Set sometime after The Old Man and the Anomaly.He’s angry. No, angry doesn’t quite cover it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you won't like this, and that's okay. I just HAD to work out these feels, and well, this is the result. I'm sorry? lol I don't know who I am anymore but I NEEDED this.

He’s angry. No, angry doesn’t quite cover it. Incensed is a good word. Livid, another. He takes another drink. Let’s the burn from the alcohol sit in his mouth a moment before he swallows and lets it go straight to his belly. He chuckles darkly at that. The kid’s belly. It’s not like his body can’t take it. It’s been years since he’s drank this much. Not that his old body couldn’t take it… it could have. He’d have felt it in the morning, though. However, now he’s pretty sure he’ll survive it better. 

Survive. 

Another dark chuckle.

There’s a hiss, the sound of the door opening. He doesn’t need to turn to know it’s her. She doesn’t say anything and neither does he. 

What’s left to say?

“How are you feeling?”

His lips pull up. “Are you asking for me or the body you stuck me in?”

“Both.”

He studies the shot glass in his hand. He should have another. He’s not nearly drunk enough. “Besides everything being a little blurry around the edges, I’d say fine.”

“Marcus, I know this is hard-”

“Do you?” He stumbles to his feet. The alcohol in combination with not being used to his new youthful strength has the chair he’s been sitting on scrape quickly and noisily across the floor. She’s finally looking at him. Only just. “Do you know how hard it is knowing you’re only alive because someone innocent is dead? Do you know what it’s like to have to look at the person you love most in this world only to feel betrayed?”

Her head lifts at that. Those dark eyes, the ones that have been avoiding him, the ones that he loves narrow. “Yes, I do.”

Her tone is barely above a whisper, but they ring in his ears as though she screamed them out. “This isn’t the same thing,” he throws back. “Saving your life in the bunker-”

“Was the _same_ , Marcus.” She takes a step toward him, then another and another until there are only inches that separate them. “Someone else died so that you could save me, and it was _you_ who made that choice against _my_ wishes.”

He tightens his jaw. He knows that she’s right, but he can’t bring himself to admit it. “This is more than that. You put my mind in a _chip_.”

“Yes, I did. And if you think I regret it, I don’t. It was the only way!”

“No, it wasn’t! The only way should have been to let me die!”

She blinks at him. “And what? Be here without you? Do this on my own? You put me in a bunker, Marcus. With no way out. I spent years trapped inside myself because I wanted to forget. You know what that cost me?” She lets the question hang out there while she gives him a sad smile that damn near breaks his heart. “You, Marcus. Letting you die wasn’t an option. After all you did to save me, I couldn’t let you die because of me. Because of the choices I made. If there’s anyone here that deserves to find peace, it’s you.”

“Death was my peace and you took that from me.” He walks back until the backs of his knees hit the chair and falls heavily into it. Now he’s the one who can’t look at her because if he does he’ll see the tears in her eyes and he’ll forgive her. 

He’s not ready to forgive her. He’s not sure if he’ll ever be.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she says and the way her voice breaks almost lift him out of the chair. “I’ll leave you alone.” The door hisses open and he hears her steps pause. “I love you, Marcus.”

He says nothing as her footsteps start down the hall or as the door closes behind her. 

Sometime later he reaches for the bottle of alcohol and pours another shot.


	2. Chapter 2

He doesn't have long to adjust to being this new… person. As soon as he wakes the morning after he's pulled into another fight it seems they can't win. It's not until after they figure out how free Clarke, stop Josephine and the other Primes, he has a chance to really breathe. 

He and Abby are speaking, but it's been forced and more out of necessity. All of the others look at him like he's the one that did this. Like he has a choice. He doesn't. Not unless he lets Gavin's sacrifice be in vain and he can't do that.

In the end, it's Indra who talks some sense into him.

_She's suffering just as much as you, only you won't let yourself see it._

_What she did-_

_Was unthinkable, but what's done is done. You need to move past it and find a way to live with it._

_And if I can't?_

_Then you have wasted all that has been given. Go to her._

When he can't find her in her room, he goes looking for her and runs into Jackson who tells him she's back medical. He shakes his head wearily before running a hand through his hair and blows out a breath. She hasn't slept in days. Neither of them has. He's exhausted, so he knows she has to be. 

He passes by Jordan who gives him a smile. There’s never a time when that kid isn't smiling. Medical is dimly lit, but he makes out her brown hair that’s tumbling down her back in the corner of the operating room. She goes there sometimes. He thinks she plays that day over again in her mind. Like she regrets it or is coming to terms with it. Probably both. 

He takes a breath and goes in. She doesn’t notice him right away, so he clears his throat and with hands on his hips he tells her, “You should be sleeping.”

Her eyes flick to him for a few heartbeats before they’re back on the table. “I will.”

“Let me walk you to your room.”

Her laugh is low, dark as his had been before. “Is this you trying to handle me, Marcus?”

“You need to take care of yourself.”

“I wasn’t aware that you cared what I did.”

 _Goddamnit, Abby,_ he thinks. Of all the things she could say to him. _Fuck_. “Of course, I care.”

Her gaze is locked on his. “Do you?”

“I do. None of this has changed my love for you though it probably should. Just like it should have changed your love for me when I did the same to you.” He bits his lip, feeling the truth of his words hit him square in the chest.

She looks down at her fingers. “We both do what we need to do to survive. I think for us it’s having other by our side.”

His words he spoke to her down in that bunker are what has him close the distance between them. Taking her in his arms, she wraps hers around her middle, and he feels the damn they’ve both been holding back break. Her shoulders shake, her sobs are muffled against his chest and at the sound his own fall down his cheeks. 

It feels good to hold her. Despite his anger. Despite everything he still loves her more than life itself.

He waits until her sobs lesson. Until her breathing evens, then he draws her gently away and takes her hand. “Come on. We both need some rest.”

She follows him silently, but her hand holds tightly to his. He doesn’t walk her to her room but his and they get into his bed in that same familiar routine they had for years in the bunker. When she’s spooned in from of him he kisses her shoulder. 

“We’ll find our way out of the dark,” he tells her softly. “Together.”

Her arms tighten around his. He waits until she’s asleep before he lets the blackness take him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating goes way up kids.

Intimacy for he and Abby has never been difficult until now. It’s like there’s been a line drawn between them. They sleep together but they keep everything neutral. It’s not that he doesn’t want to; he does. He wakes rock solid to dreams and the feel of her so close. He knows she feels it. His body (yes he’s come to accept it as his,) is younger and has the youthful build he had once upon a time but there are some parts that aren’t so different in size. 

He’s not dense. Every morning he looks in the mirror he knows why things have changed. While it’s odd for him, he knows it’s even more for her. For him, she’s the same woman he’s known all his life. She’s the same woman he fell in love with.

He, on the other hand, is a whole new person. He is and yet he isn’t the man she loves.

She reassures him, though. That’s what gives him hope. While his body, his voice may be different, she tells him his words, his mannerisms are. She no longer flinches when he takes her hand or hesitates when he opens his arms for her to step into. They’re making progress to get back to where they were. It’s slow but building. It’s what helps him sleep at night.

“Do you ever think about the way people see us now?” 

Her voice pulls him from the edge of sleep. He lifts his head up to make sure he’s heard her right. “What?”

She lets out a soft sigh. Her fingertips are tracing a pattern on his arm wrapped around her. “Sometimes I get this feeling that people think we’re… not suited for each other anymore.”

Oh. He lets out a noisy breath. There are times he watches as eyes dart from him to her and back and he thinks he sees a flicker of judgment there for a second before he brushes it off. He’s past caring about how anyone sees his relationship with Abby. “I’m surprised you care about what people think.”

“I don’t.” She turns on her back her head resting on his shoulder. Her eyes are looking up at the ceiling when she says, “I just sometimes wonder if things would be easier for you if you were with someone closer to your age.”

He knows she’s being serious, but he can’t help himself and he chuckles. “ _You’re_ my own age. Actually, younger than me if you want to get technical.”

“Marcus-” she sighs his name and its one of her low impatient sighs that tells him she’s not in the mood for jokes.

Alright, if they’re going to have this conversation…

With his own sigh, he sits them both up and he scoots back so that his back is against the headboard of the bed. Her mouth is set into a frown, but she goes and sits beside him. “Where is this coming from?” he asks, and she hesitates. Over the years he’s learned to read her like a book and the face she’s making right now, something happened that she’s not telling him. “Abby?”

She opens her mouth and makes a low noise of frustration before giving in. “Someone asked me if I was your mother.”

His brow furrowed. “When? On the ship?”

“No, down on the ground. Some woman at the fair saw you standing next to Clarke and when I mentioned she was my daughter she assumed-”

“That I was your son,” he finished for her. So that was why she hadn't wanted to go down to the planet lately. He shook his head. “Well, it’s ridiculous to even ask. Physically we’re only eleven years apart.” 

“That may be, but it doesn’t look like eleven years.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Oh, come on Marcus,” she says moving away so she can turn to face him. “The years, especially these last few, haven’t exactly been kind to me.” 

He blinks at her. Is she serious? She can’t be. She’s still the most stunning woman he’s ever laid eyes on. “Abby, you’re beautiful,” he begins.

“And wrinkled.”

He sighs, defends, “Where?”

“I have grey hair.”

“It looks more blonde to me,” he returns.

She gives him a look. “I’m not as… firm as I used to be.”

His eyes follow hers when her gaze falls and then widen. She’s wearing only a black tank top and pair of underwear. There’s one thing about Abby that he’s always loved, and that’s how magnificently well certain assets have withstood the test of time.

With speed and strength he’s grown accustomed to, he takes her by the waist and pulls her onto his lap. Her hands settle on his shoulders. There’s a soft laugh that had escaped her, but she’s tampered it down and settled her expression into something more serious. “Please tell me you’re joking because from where I’m sitting there’s nothing further from the truth.”

Her face softens and her hand cups the side of his face. “You’re biased, Marcus.”

She says that a lot. His name. Like she needs a constant reminder that it’s really him.

“That may be, but it doesn’t change the fact that you are a beautiful desirable woman. I can guarantee there are a number of men on this ship and on the ground younger than me who would give their right arm to have you in their bed.”

She rolls her eyes, but there’s a smile on her lips regardless. “Their right arm?”

“Probably their left too.” 

This time she lets herself laugh. “If you say so.”

“I do say so.” He lets out a breath and with it, his eyes drop to her mouth, to her lips and hers do the same. The air around them charges. It’s been… he’s about to think months but in all reality, it’s been years.

His hands rest against her back, keeping her from moving away. He can feel his heartbeat beat heavily against his chest as he leans toward her. He stops with scant space between them because he needs her to be the one that closes that space. For a terrifying moment he doesn’t think that she will, but then her breath is warm against his lips right before he feels her soft lips on his.

She's soft and pliant and broken under his touch. She yearns for another version of him, a version that she loved so much she mourned for months after they sent him out to space.

Somehow he believes that speaking to her helps soothe a part of her that will always be tethered to his old self. She holds so much in; always has. She doesn't confide in him like she used to, and yet their conversation tonight makes him think she’s opening up.

He's forgiven her for what she's done to him. But it’s slow acceptance on her part. While he cares only for how they move on from here and now, she’s been stuck in an endless cycle of blame. 

There is a planet beneath them but after all these years, they prefer the familiarities of space. As much as he tells himself they’re alright, he knows it's a lie. The distance between them had been hard on them both. Nothing about this has been easy. All he knows, all he feels, and all he needs is this back.

Her.

He's holding his world in his arms and can't help but appreciate how precious it is to do so. There is a need, a want to protect her from herself that rises in his chest when he thinks about how she no longer believes she good enough.

He wants her. And he regrets every day since she’s saved him he’s held her at a distance.

The evidence of his desire is now pressed against her, hot and hard. It’s taking everything he has to hold back and go slow, but once her hands move down his bare chest and her mouth softens under his to deepen their kiss he loses it.

His hands that were once holding her are moving now. His fingertips trail up and down her back underneath her tank and, to his great satisfaction, make her shiver. She pulls away, crosses her arms and lifts away the material that keeps her skin from his.

“You’re beautiful," he tells her. Her eyes drop from his and fill with tears. He swallows hard against the wave of emotions this first time brings, and croaks, "Abby, it's alright."

She falls forward and turns her head into the crook of his neck. His arms go around her and hold her close as he breathes her in. She places a kiss to his neck, to the pulse that beats strongly beneath his skin, and his hands start to move once again, picking up the caress they had before. Resuming the slow up and down motion along her spine and then over her sides and back.

When she finally pulls away, her tears have gone but the wetness on her cheeks remains. He reaches up and wipes away their presence. She eyes avoid his, but he lifts his hand away from her face and places a knuckle under her chin that has her raising her head.

He just wants to see her.

When her gaze meets his, he takes her in, and she lets him. Another tear slips down and this time he's there to catch it. Then both hands are back to cradle her face while fingers tangle in her hair. And he thinks the gesture must be so him because it has her leaning into his touch, her own hands rising to cover his as she closes her eyes.

‘“Abby, look at me." Her eyes slowly open. “We focus on what comes next.” Her dark, wet lashes blink at him, causing more tears to fall, and her bottom lip to quiver.

His hands reach down to grasp at her hips, sliding her closer to him. His brow falls to hers, and it's an action that leaves her gasping.

After a few moments like this, she places her hands on his shoulders and catches him off guard when she moves away to remove her underwear. It's his turn to close his eyes to stay any moisture from filling his own.

After a moment, he feels her smack his thigh gently. He opens his eyes to see her looking down at him. Her eyes shit from his to his lower half and he lets out a light laugh as he raises his hips to remove the last of his clothes. When she settles back on his lap, her hands are in his hair, fingers raking through it softly.

"I love you, Marcus." He only has time to say her name in kind before her lips are crashing down on his. His heart hammers in his chest. His hands cannot stop touching her. They're gliding up the soft flesh of her thighs, up and over and back farther to take handfuls of her ass, pulling her closer still though she's already against him. Her tongue licks at the seam of his lips and his mouth softness, opens under hers willingly.

She is everything to him, he thinks, and when her hands move from his hair down, her nails dig into the back of his neck. His hands move from her rear, up and around to cup her breasts. They are soft and full, the weight of them fills his hands, the feel of her stiff nipples against his palms, and her breath intakes, a sharp needy thing that has her pushing her chest into his touch. "Yes."

She sighs his name, presses insistently against him, and he gets the message. One of his hands leaving her breast snaking down between them, and then he is hissing, and telling her, "God, Abby.”

Her hips grind against his hand and when his fingers find her clit. He rubs her in quick tight little circles the way that he knows that she likes, making her jaw drop and her breath hitch.

Their kisses are hungry, tongues and lips demanding and then he's leaving a wet trail down her jaw and throat. Plants kiss after kiss, a row of them, just like he used to.

His jaw drops down when she reaches down between them where he's hard and ready for her, taking him in hand. A groan spills from him as her soft, warm hand closes around him.

Her grip is firm as she sets a slow pace, and he swallows, his breath going quick and he grits his teeth. Soon she is pulling back his foreskin and swiping her thumb across the tip of him like she knows he likes. He leans in because he needs to feel her lips on his again, needs to be as close to her as possible, and she returns his kiss eagerly, if not more so.

His moan breaks them from their kiss, and his hand covers hers, stills her, as he gasps, "I want to be inside you."

She licks her lips and nods. Rising up on her knees, she swallows, and his hands reach up, pushing her hair back away from her face, and pulls her down to him for one more soft kiss.

He splays one hand across her back and one under her leg and flips them so that she's now on her back looking up at him with wide, pleasantly surprised eyes and her chest is shaking as she chuckles.

He's smiling so much he feels like his face might split into two at the sight of her so happy, and it's with that he pushes into her. One quick thrust home and those eyes of hers flutter close again. Bracing himself on his elbows, he kisses on her brow and then she's tilting her head up, wanting his lips on her and he's more than happy to oblige. 

Her legs come up, wrap around his waist and he begins to move. It isn’t going to take long for either of them, not at all, not when she's tight and hot around him, and looking up at him with love in her eyes. It’s alright, though, because they have all night to make up for lost time. Her jaw drops open on a particularly hard thrust, her eyes closing, soon she's biting that lower lip. He feels her belly slick with sweat against his clenching as she arches into him, and he wants to see her come apart for him before he fills her.

He presses a soft kiss to her collar and sets a steady in and out motion while his hand falls between her legs. He teases over where she's sensitive, making her cry out and thrust up into his hand.

A few passes over her clit and she's falling, shuddering. "I'm- oh, God," she manages, then he watches as she falls over the edge, wave after wave takes her, and his pace picks up, jutting against her and it's with his own cry that he spills his release inside her.

He stays there for a few moments. His chest is heaving as is hers, and it's with a deep exhale that he slips from her and falls down beside her, leaning over and kissing her before pulling her along with him as he rolls onto his back.

Her head rests on his chest, and with his lips against her brow, he lets the pull of sleep drag him under along with her.

For the first time since she saved him, he sleeps soundly, peacefully, with her right where she was always meant to be. Blissful in his arms.


End file.
